CBS News Immigration and Politics Reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez joined ICE agents in Portland this week as they carried out a targeted operation — one focused on illegal immigrants with serious criminal records. Among those arrested was “a man from Mexico who had been released that morning from state prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter.”
Montoya-Galvez explained, “We really came here to better understand the Trump administration’s dramatic crackdown on illegal immigration and the backlash that has ensued because of it… We saw more than a dozen ICE agents this morning arrest a man from Mexico who had been released that morning from state prison after serving a sentence for manslaughter.”
He continued, “But his children were there waiting for him to be released, Shanelle, and they were asking ICE not to take their father into custody. It was a really tense situation, a really tense environment.”
The emotional framing may tug at heartstrings, but it’s easy to overlook what’s really at stake — public safety and the rule of law. A man convicted of taking another life was about to reenter an American community illegally. ICE agents, doing the job taxpayers expect them to do, prevented that. Yet the moment becomes portrayed as tragedy rather than justice served.
This has become the familiar narrative under media coverage of immigration enforcement: law-abiding officers are painted as villains, while convicted felons are depicted as victims of circumstance. Lost in the noise is a basic truth — if local authorities and federal agencies aren’t allowed to coordinate and enforce immigration law, dangerous offenders will walk free.
That’s not just an abstract policy debate. It’s a real threat to neighborhoods, families, and victims who depend on the system to keep them safe. When a convicted killer can serve his sentence and then remain in the country illegally, something is deeply broken. ICE’s “targeted operations” aren’t random or cruel; they’re common-sense law enforcement.
But as long as activists and much of the media continue framing every deportation as an act of heartlessness, the men and women protecting our borders will remain under attack for doing their jobs. In the end, it’s the law-abiding citizens — and the families of victims — who pay the price for Washington’s selective compassion.
